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Fertility Awareness Method for Natural Birth Control, Natural Conception, and Body Literacy. Colleen Flowers loves teaching individuals and couples about their reproductive health and fertility from a natural & holistic perspective!
Kindara is an iPhone app that is based in Boulder, CO. They offer women who are charting their cycles using the Fertility Awareness Method a way to enter and record their fertility data. Right now Kindara is in the process of improving the app using a focus group and want YOUR help!
Interested? Follow these links if you’re trying to get pregnant or if you’re trying to avoid pregnancy.
Aside from reducing stress, eating a plant-based, whole-foods diet is a great way to boost your fertility. Basically, our bodies are designed to try and “get us pregnant" every cycle. If there are outside factors (like stress, poor nutrition, repeated illnesses, etc.) telling our bodies “this isn’t a good time to get her pregnant," then conceiving might be a bit more challenging.
"Real Food for Mother & Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby’s First Foods" by Nina Planck is a great place to start. The rule-of-thumb is to eat REAL food… what our great-grandmothers would have recognized as food ;)
Two things to keep in mind… avoiding the “dirty dozen" and eating low-mercury fish. The dirty dozen includes foods in which we eat the skin or the skin is thin (and potentially covered in pesticides): apples, bell peppers, blueberries, celery, cherries, grapes (imported), kale, nectarines (imported), peaches, potatoes, spinach/lettuce, and strawberries. It’s best to buy these organic and/or local. Low-mercury fish choices (so our body doesn’t store heavy metal poisons) include arctic cod, anchovies, catfish, clam, crab, oyster, sardine, scallop, shrimp, tilapia, trout, and wild salmon (http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx).
Yum! Eating for 1 so that eventually you’re “eating for 2" can taste really good!
When women first learn to chart using the Fertility Awareness Method, more often than not, they seem to use their Basal Body Temperature (BBT) as the most important fertility sign… but it’s not!
I can understand (and even relate) as to why that is… it’s a number you can record… it’s objective… it’s black and white… there’s no guesswork. But in the end, it’s retrospective… it’s what’s happened “back there" and when charting cycles, we want to know what’s “going to happen," particularly when ovulation is about to occur. We want to know when we’re fertile (ovulation is just around the corner) and when we’re not fertile (ovulation is still far off or it happened awhile ago).
That’s where the importance of charting Cervical Fluid (CF) comes into play. For a variety of reasons, CF is the definition of fertility! But a lot of women are confused about interpreting their CF and what it means. There can be a lot of, “I’m pretty sure I’m not fertile, but I’m not certain." That’s why finding an instructor that’s qualified to teach the FAM is so important! If you’re confused about what your CF is and means, I encourage you to find the answers to your questions by coming to one of my classes or finding a teacher in your area. Our Cervical Fluid is speaking a language, we just have to learn how to be a part of the conversation!
I’m so incredibly proud of my dear friend, Kylene. She left her secure 9-5 marketing job this summer to pursue her passion… photography. She’s crazy, right?
Well… it turns out she’s not because it’s working! I love when that happens. (Also, I may or may not have been one of the people “practically begging her to take the leap.")
A gift she made for us hangs in our house; it’s one of my favorite quotes: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive" (Harold Whitman).
Strange as it may sound, Fertility Awareness makes me come alive! No matter how a conversation starts with a friend, acquaintance or stranger, more often than not we end up talking about something related to FA… and I’m pretty sure these conversations aren’t just one sided ;) I’m so grateful that I have the opportunity to combine my passion with my profession just like Kylene discovered.
But seriously… my heart goes out to those experiencing frustration about getting and staying pregnant. It can be tough physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and (of course) financially. Sadly, our society and culture often do not honor this.
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I have to confess, I don’t. But I do think it’s a great start for making new, healthy habits! For all the women who are making 2013 New Year’s resolutions, I wonder how many are saying, “This! This will be the year I’ll be free of birth control hormones and birth control devices!"
While using the Fertility Awareness Method as a form of birth control isn’t for every woman, I think that many don’t even know its existence as an option. Maybe “this is your sign" and you’ll consider coming to one of my upcoming classes at Blossom Wellness Center on Thursday, January 17 from 6pm-8:30pm or Saturday, February 9 from 1pm-3:30pm. It’s $40/person, $50/couple and you can register by calling 303-788-0600. Learn to chart in 2013!
Disclaimer - Pssst! I’m not a doctor. I’m an educator. So think of me like a book that can talk and provide you with some pretty awesome education about your reproductive health! Read more about Terms & Conditions…
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